Come On, Vocal

Hey, Vocal. It's me again.

It has come to my attention that the second-place winner in the Old Barn Challenge did not adhere to the competition guidelines. The story was several hundred words over the 2,000-word limit. You know this. You’ve responded to it. And not well.

We’ve seen winning stories that were sloppy. Winners with abysmal spelling and grammar. Stories that didn’t even address the subject at hand. It’s annoying, frustrating, demoralizing. It certainly detracts from the Vocal experience and discourages loyalty to your site. This is nothing I haven't said before.

But this is different. What happened here was a complete divergence from what appeared to be established rules accepted by all participants in your competition. This is a much less subjective complaint than those members have made in the past. There's a real, undeniable issue here.

I’m not slamming Challenge winners. Some of the chosen pieces have been excellent works, truly deserving of recognition and praise. I would argue that every winning story has some redeeming quality; why else would it have made it to the top three? I have personally come to the defense of these winners, who inevitably find themselves the targets of public scrutiny that often crosses the line and devolves into unwarranted and unacceptable insults.

And I’m not criticizing the story in question. I haven’t even read it.

But your answer to the backlash is insufficient and has only added fuel to the fire. I was frustrated to begin with. After reading the responses of your support team, I’m kind of pissed.

Every Challenge announcement has a ‘How to enter’ section that outlines the basic requirements of the competition. This section of the Old Barn Challenge reads: “For your story to be eligible, it must be between 600 and 2,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines.”

Must. And that’s just to be eligible to enter. How did this story make it through the first phase of submission, let alone place in the Challenge? If a piece doesn't adhere to the rules, aren't you supposed to send it back for edits?

To play devil’s advocate, the Official Rules establish no maximum word count. Technically, entries didn’t have to be under 2,000 words, and you were seemingly under no legal obligation to limit your selection to stories that were. In your response to complaints, you could have simply said, ‘We apologize for the discrepancy in guidelines, but the official rules don’t actually specify a maximum word count.’ Still irritating, but this would have at least been an acknowledgment of the issue and explanation of why Vocal was within their right to name this winner.

But that’s not what you said. You said, “[O]ur judges can choose to overlook our guideline of a word count limit based on the quality of a story.” You guys went full Barbossa.

Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places, but I have yet to find a Challenge stipulation stating that judges can simply throw out the rule book when it suits them. And I’m incredibly discouraged by the idea that the rules aren’t set in stone. Who wants to enter a contest in which the goal posts change and individual judges get to make their own rules? Isn’t the first round of single-moderator elimination subjective enough?

The Official Rules of the Summer Fiction Series and Vocal’s Community Guidelines both say that submissions must be at least 600 words. Neither make any mention of how long these stories can be. In the past, the ‘How to enter’ section on each Challenge page has varied, typically requiring less than 2,000 or 5,000 words.

I have occasionally wondered if the official rules are different. I looked them over when I first began entering Challenges and have done so a few times since. They all seemed generally the same substantively and consistent with the ‘How to enter’ section of the Challenge pages. So I've stopped reading the fine print and typically stick to the general guidelines. That doesn’t seem too unreasonable when all of the requirements are seemingly listed out on the Challenge pages.

Still, that's on me. My bad for not reading the rules carefully.

What I find disappointing is the dismissiveness of your response, when the discrepancy was on your end. It wasn't unreasonable for writers to assume that there was a 2,000-word limit when the Challenge page used unequivocal language stating so, and it’s completely understandable that paying members of your service would be frustrated by this inconsistency.

I didn’t expect to win the Old Barn Challenge; I don’t write fiction, and my submission wasn’t a story I was proud of or felt confident about. I’m happy and excited for the fiction writers who have this new Vocal community and an entire series of competitions specifically tailored to their talents.

And most of my stories come nowhere near 2,000 words, so this isn’t about me. It’s about the people who worked hard to tailor their entries to a guideline that seemingly left no ambiguity or room for interpretation. And about your completely unapologetic attitude in responding to this misunderstanding.

Vocal has treated me well, and I’m grateful for this platform and the opportunities it offers. I use your site as a sort of blog, a space to vent and talk about the things that interest me. I love having a place to ‘Vocalize’ the random thoughts that pop into my head. Having achieved Top Story three times, I view Challenge placement as the final frontier, the last goal to really strive for. I hope to accomplish that someday.

But as a paying customer, I’d like to know that there is some consistency and transparency in Challenge judgment. And I'd certainly like to be assured that the rules aren't going to change on the whims of individual judges.

I’m not asking you to rescind the winner’s award or publicly denounce their work. But you should amend this response, apologize to your members, and assure us that this won’t happen again. The rest of the Challenge pages have the same inconsistency. The discrepancy is still there, misleading writers and creating the potential for future misunderstanding, frustration, and disillusionment with your website.

I know you’re taking heat right now, and I don’t mean to pile on. I love this site and want to see it succeed. This is an opportunity for you to show members that you value our business. Addressing this issue in a professional manner is one way that you can foster trust in this platform, alleviate users' concerns, and improve the Challenge experience. I hope that you will.